EA Games took the wraps off of the next chapter of its game series Need For Speed Heat, just a couple of days ago. EA revealed a trailer and has given an official launch date of 8th November this year. And now, EA is discontinuing loot boxes in the upcoming NFS Heat as monetization policies involving loot boxes are facing increased scrutiny. Recently, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony announced how they are working on new policies concerning ‘Loot Boxes’. They are keenly encouraging all the leading publishers into disclosing the odds of receiving different types of in-game items from loot boxes in all future titles.
EA community lead Ben Walke, “There are no loot boxes in NFS Heat and there won’t be.” Instead, EA plans on monetizing the driving game with car packs and a time-saver pack. “We plan to have post-launch paid-DLC in the form of car packs,” Walke replied to another Reddit user. “Later this year we’ll introduce a time-save pack, which will show all collectables on the map. That’s it.”
In the coming years, many publishers are going to come forward and start sharing loot box odds or may even discontinue them completely as a precautionary step to restrict people from unnecessary expenditure. However, that still is speculation and we can only wait but EA’s exclusion of loot boxes is a wise move from the publishers as the gaming industry seems to be under scrutiny for loot boxes which most of the government organizations consider as ‘gambling’.